QUANTRILL'S RAID: THE DESTRUCTION AND REBUILDING OF LAWRENCE KANSAS
  • Home
  • Historical Context
    • Kansas-Nebraska Act
    • Early Lawrence, Kansas
    • Bleeding Kansas
  • Tragedy of Lawrence
    • Quantrill & His Path
    • The Raid
    • Aftermath >
      • Local
      • National
  • Triumph of Lawrence
    • Rebuilding
    • Legacy
  • Conclusion

Bleeding Kansas

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Border War Map, 1991, Thomas Goodrich, "Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre". Click to enlarge.
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The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act exacerbated tensions over slavery and opened Kansas up to massive conflict, a time known as Bleeding Kansas (1854-1861).
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​Abolitionists

Abolish slavery all throughout the Union
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​Free soilers

Prevent slavery from expanding
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Pro-Slavery

Preserve and expand slavery throughout the Union

Border Ruffians


Border Ruffians,’ Missourians who freely crossed the border to vote or participate sporadically in Kansas affairs, but who did not settle there permanently."
NICOLE ETCHESON,  "BLEEDING KANSAS: CONTESTED LIBERTY IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA", 2004
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Border Ruffians fought for what they believed in and defended their people, as Kansans attacked.
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Border Ruffians headed to Kansas, Bliss Isely, 1927, "Early Days in Kansas".
If Missourians did not rally to defend their right to be in Kansas Territory, ‘Kansas is lost to the South forever–and out slaves in upper Missouri will be useless to us–and our homes must be given up on to the abolition enemy.’”
Nicole Etcheson,  "Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era", 2004
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Nicole Etcheson, 2004, "Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in Civil War Era"
The fighting, however, brought danger to proslavery lives as well as abstract rights. A Missouri man wrote eloquently of ‘the havoc made by the Abolitionists, how they have killed the Settlers, or have driven them from their possessions, burned down their dwellings, and plundered or stolen everything they could carry off, and that not one pro slavery man is left south of the Kansas river in peaceable possession of his property.’”
NICOLE ETCHESON, " BLEEDING KANSAS: CONTESTED LIBERTY IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA", 2004

African american experience


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Richard Bruner, The Kansas Question Exhibit, Carnegie Building.
[T]hey thrashed me once, made me hug a tree and whip me...Well you see I was a runaway...I run away when I was grown and went to Kansas.”
​Richard Bruner, Slave Narratives: The kansas question exhibit, Carnegie Building

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In their search for freedom, Missouri slaves flocked towards Kansas.
Missouri slaves used the confusion to expand the meaning of freedom by seizing theirs. Although many free states initially denied their movement intended black liberty as well as white, blacks increasingly found allies among the free-state ranks."
NICOLE ETCHESON, " BLEEDING KANSAS: CONTESTED LIBERTY IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA", 2004
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While many African Americans found refuge in Kansas, they were not met with equal treatment.
What were the free staters fighting for? Marching back to Lawrence in early September, 1856, a slave tried to join Lane’s army. Lane ordered him returned to his owner, saying ‘that we were not fighting to free black men but to free white men.’"
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NICOLE ETCHESON, " BLEEDING KANSAS: CONTESTED LIBERTY IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA", 2004
Kansas was not truly free.

Sack on lawrnece


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May 21,1856 was the first attack on Lawrence and resulted in the burning of one home and the Free State Hotel. This attack would not be the last destructive event Lawrence would experience.
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Ruins of the Free-State Hotel, 1856, Kansas Historical Society.
The Sack on Lawrence was a moral victory for the free-state side; it shifted public opinion from distaste for free-state defiance of territorial law to admiration for restraint in not responding to the violence."
NICOLE ETCHESON, "BLEEDING KANSAS: CONTESTED LIBERTY IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA", 2004

John Brown​


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John Brown, 1850's, Library of Congress.
"The Raid on Harper's Ferry", 23 Feb. 2010, Smithsonian Magazine - Youtube.
One person there was, . . . to whom earthly fame or human discredit seemed of very small account; who yet suffered the extremes of both. This was John Brown, - a man who made the most common of names uncommonly famous, and, as many said infamous.."
Frank Sanborn, the west virginia Department of Art, Culture and history

"October 16: the Raid"
​by Langston Hughes, 1932

Perhaps 
You will remember
John Brown.

John Brown
Who took his gun,
Took twenty-one companions
White and black,
Went to shoot your way to freedom
Where two rivers meet
And the hills of the 
North
And the hills of the 
South
Look slow at one another--
And died
For your sake.
Now that you are
Many years free,
And the echo of the Civil War
Has passed away,
And Brown himself
Has long been tried at law,
Hanged by the neck,
And buried in the ground--
Since Harpers Ferry
Is alive with ghosts today,
Immortal raiders
Come again to town--

Perhaps
You will recall
​John Brown. ​
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Brown was a leader of the abolitionists and led many attacks on Missourians. His method of violence has made him a controversial figure.
​NOw, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say let it be done."
John Brown, Last note before execution printed in the New York times, 1859
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After the raid on Harper's Ferry, a military armory in Virginia, Brown was sentenced to death. To some Brown is remembered as a terrorist, but to others he was a martyr who symbolizes the fight against slavery.
Pamphlet asking for prayers toward John Brown, 4 Nov. 1859, The Library of Virginia.
"Tragic Prelude", John Steuart Curry, 1940, Kansas Historical Society.
Harper's Weekly political cartoon of John Brown, 26 Nov. 1856, West Virginia State Archives.
"John Brown's Blessing", Thomas Satterwhite Noble, 1867, New York Historical Society.
Click images to enlarge and view captions and citations. ​

"John Brown" Song

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"John Brown Song" lyrics immortalizing him as "His soul goes marching on". Watkins Museum of History. Click to enlarge

COnstitutional Journey


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The struggle for Kansas to be a free or slave state was not just physical, it was political too. Delegates wrote multiple constitutions for the state.
LET US THEN URGE UPON EVERY TRUE FREE STATE MAN, AND EVERY MAN WHO HAS AT HEART THE REAL PROSPERITY AND PROGRESS OF KANSAS, TO DEVOTE HIS TIME FROM NOW UNTIL THE ELECTION IN SECURING A FULL AND OVERWHELMING VOTE FOR THE CONSTITUTION..."
​LAWRENCE REPUBLICAN, 29 SEPt. 1859, Watkins Museum of History

1
Topeka Constitution
1855

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Topeka Constitution, 12 Nov. 1855, Kansas Historical Society.
There shall be no slavery in this state, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime."
Topeaka Constitution, Article 1 sec. 6, 1855
Every white male person, and every civilized male Indian who has adopted the habits of the white man, ...shall...vote a citizen of the United States"
TOPEAKA CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 2 SEC. 2, 1855

2
 LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION
1857

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Lecompton Constitution, 7 Nov. 1857, Kansas Historical Society.

On Slavery

...the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever."
Lecompton CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 7 SEC. 1, 1857

On Suffrage

Every male citizen of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in this State one year... may offer to vote..."
LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 8 SEC. 1, 1857

​3
LEAVENWORTH CONSTITUTION
​1858

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Leavenworth Constitution, 3 April 1858, Kansas Historical Society.
There shall be no slavery in this State, and no involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted."
Leavenworth CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 1 SEC. 6, 1858
...every male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, ...may offer to vote..."
LEAVENWORTH CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 2 SEC. 1, 1858
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Constitution of the State of Kansas, 29 July 1859, Watkins Museum of History.

4
Wyandotte CONSTITUTION
​1859

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All constitutions before the Wyandotte were rejected by the US congress. 
We, the people of Kansas, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious privileges, in order to insure the full enjoyment of our rights as American citizens, do ordain and establish the Constitution of the State of Kansas..." 
WYANDOTTE CONSTITUTION PREAMBLE, 1859
One of the things that allowed Kansas to be successful in 1861 with their final petition to congress was that at that same time the civil war had started to bubble up and states had started to succeed and senators had started to leave….In January of 1861 Kansas entered the Union as a free state at the same time the nation divided into the civil war."
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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT THE WATKINS MUSEUM OF HISTORY STEVE NOVACK, C-SPAN, DEC. 18, 2018
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Kansas's status was finally settled.

Once the issue of Kansas being free or slave was settled with statehood… raides continued to happen but for a slightly different reason. Kansas was a union state and Missouri was a confederate state and both sides of the border were caught up in a national conflict.”
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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT THE WATKINS MUSEUM OF HISTORY STEVE NOVACK, C-SPAN, DEC. 18, 2018
For years the people of western Missouri had made no secret of their determination someday to wipe out Lawrence. To them the town was the citadel of Kansas abolitionism, the symbol of all that they hated in Kansas. It had been the ‘Free-State Fortress"
Albert Castel, "Kansas Revisited: Historical Images and Perspectives", 1990
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The border conflict remained as the nation entered into a Civil War.

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Senior Division
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  • Home
  • Historical Context
    • Kansas-Nebraska Act
    • Early Lawrence, Kansas
    • Bleeding Kansas
  • Tragedy of Lawrence
    • Quantrill & His Path
    • The Raid
    • Aftermath >
      • Local
      • National
  • Triumph of Lawrence
    • Rebuilding
    • Legacy
  • Conclusion